About us 
Ben Crick
Artistic Director
Rachael Drury
Orchestral Leader
The Camerata
Sarah Estill
Education Director
Rachael began the violin aged four, learning with Joanna Havelock before joining the Bromley Youth Music Trust in 1988. In 1994 she became a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and 1998 became the principal second violin of the NYO. In 1996 became a string semi-finalist at the BBC Young Musician of the Year, was highly commended at the Audi Junior Musician Competition and won the Norman Trotman Competition.
Rachael studied at Hull University where she led the Symphony Orchestra for three years, achieved a 1st class BMus Degree and the Andrew Brown university prize for achieving the highest mark in performance awarded by a university board. She then continued her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music graduating in 2005 with a postgraduate diploma in performance.Concerto successes include the Bruch violin concerto, which was recorded by Classic FM for their masterclass series in 1999.
She has also performed works by Saint-Saens, Vivaldi, Ravel, Schubert and most recently Beethoven's Triple Concerto with cellist Rod Skipp and pianist Peter Smith as part of the Hull Sinfonietta Soloists Scheme.
Currently, Rachael freelances with orchestras and string ensembles in the North of England. She has recently worked with the Halle and the Manchester Camerata and is the leader of the Skipton Camerata.
Born in Huddersfield, Ben studied cello, singing, percussion and music theory from an early age and completed his studies at the University of Leeds. He studied conducting with Fraiser Goulding and has worked with such figures as Martyn Brabbins and Jane Glover. He has conducted works as diverse as Bachs Wachet auf! and Stravinskys Dumbarton Oaks and is equally at home in the opera house as on the concert platform. He conducted Madam Butterfly at the 2007 Grassington Festival and is the principal guest conductor of the English National Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ben started Skipton Camerata in 2004 to provide a professional Yorkshire based chamber orchestra offering work to musicians leaving the academies and conservatoires. The orchestra has played throughout the North of England performing repertoire works in concert hall, discovering new or forgotten works and presenting classical music in unusual venues such as pubs, shopping centres and cattle markets.
The orchestra has gained a reputation for innovative and vibrant music making and won several awards for excellence in performance and audience development.
As well as his conducting career Ben is a visiting lecturer at several Universities, writes for Classical Music Magazine and Early Music Today and arranges music for many societies including the Royal School of Church Music.
Sarah Estill was awarded a BA/MA from Keble College, Oxford, before graduating with Distinction with MA in Performance from the University of Huddersfield. She continued her vocal and operatic studies on various scholarships at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Dublin DIT Conservatoire of Music, Flanders Opera Studio, the Royal Northern College of Music and on the Opera Course of Mannes College of Music, New York. She is also an alumna of the Wagner Society and Britten-Pears Young Artist Programmes.
As a performer, Sarah sings regularly with Opera North and English National Opera. Her professional engagements as a soloist have taken her all over the world singing roles such as Leonora Il Trovatore, Violetta La Traviata, Donna Anna Don Giovanni, Amelia A Masked Ball and the title roles in Ariadne auf Naxos, Aida, Tosca and Suor Angelica. She made her debut in Wagner repertoire as Gutrune in Götterdämmerung, followed by Helmwige in Die Walküre, Flower Maiden I Parsifal, Woglinde, Freia, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde (Siegfried/Götterdämmerung) and Eva Die Meistersinger. She has understudied Mother/Witch Hansel and Gretel for Opera North, Venus in Mozarts Ascanio in Alba for Buxton Festival Opera, Nedda I Pagliacci for English Pocket Opera and Rosalinde Die Fledermaus for English Touring Opera. Already an established Britten singer, she has sung Lady Billows Albert Herring at the 2005 Britten Festival in Aldeburgh, Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw in Malta, the War Requiem in St Albans Abbey, and Female Chorus The Rape of Lucretia in Belgium; she has also covered Ellen Orford for Surrey Opera and was part of the Peter Grimes conducted by Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Festival and was also featured as Brittania the new Peter Grimes in 2009 at English National Opera.
Sarah has directing credits include producing shows such as Beatrice and Benedick, The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Bartered Bride for West Riding Opera, Madam Butterfly and Dido and Aeneas for Skipton Camerata, Hansel and Gretel for Buxton Festival, Suor Angelica for Opera Femina and A Night in Paris for Opera on a Shoestring.
Sarah Estill is also in much demand as a vocal and dramatic animateur in the areas of education and audience development. She has offered private vocal tuition for over 15 years. She continues to be involved with a number of educational projects for Opera North and English National Opera and has for a long time been associated with the award-winning and unique group Leeds Youth Opera. She is currently the Education Leader for Skipton Camerata and was recently selected by Creative Partnerships as a workshop practioner. She has run education workshops and projects for Buxton Festival, Grassington Festival, Lakeland Opera and has established a number of choirs. Her teaching and education related experience has involved her working as a workshop leader and animateur with primary children through to adults, in various establishments from private schools to inner city academies, from stage schools to higher education institutions, and she remains commited to widening participation in the arts through performance opportunities and educational activities.
Skipton Camerata was created in 2004 and has since established a reputation for innovative and engaging professional performances. As well as playing established repertoire works in the concert hall the orchestra have also staged early Mozart operas in pubs, commissioned and performed new works in shopping centres and given 20th century premieres of forgotten works.
The orchestra is based at Skipton Girls High School and as a result are the first professional orchestra to be based in a secondary school. This combined with the fact that the Camerata is a delivery partner for NYMAZ (North Yorkshire Music Action Zone) allows the group to run a year long education programme working with participants aged 4 to 18 throughout the north of England.
This combination of traditional and inventive performances has seen the orchestra perform at venues which include The Royal Northern College of Music, Harewood House and the Globe Theatre, London whilst also receiving several awards for audience development.
This diversity is made possible by generous financial support from Skipton Building Society who have supported the orchestra from 2005.
